Headlines containing the phrase ‘How to’ perform 49% WORSE than the same headlines without

A detailed analysis of more than 3.3 million paid-link headlines has set the cat amongst the pigeons in the marketing world. The findings fly in the face of some of marketing’s most deeply held beliefs. Covering a 12 month period Outbrain, the world’s largest content discovery platform, sampled the performance of headlines across more than 100,000 publisher sites, measuring their effectiveness in terms of reach (click-through), engagement (sticking around and consuming the content, or page views), and conversions (getting the reader to take some action). Their findings suggest that many techniques sacred to marketers have reached saturation level and have now become counterproductive. The ‘hard sell’ has had its day.WHAT COMPELS PEOPLE TO ‘CLICK’ (AND WHAT CONSTRAINS THEM)?Negative There are certain words and headline concepts that people don’t like to click. They used to work but, probably through over use, they have become a real inhibitor…Don’t tell me ‘How to’ - Headlines using the ‘how to’ formula performed 49% worse than similar headlines withoutNo longer ‘the best’ – Superlatives performed 14% worse than headlines where they were avoidedDon’t get personal - Using ‘second person’ references to the reader, such as ‘you’ or ‘your’ does more harm than good - performing 36% worse than headlines without. Ouch, that really does go against the received wisdom. Remember, we are talking headlines, not body copy.It ain’t easy – People are sick of ‘easy ways’ and ‘easy steps’. Headlines with the word ‘easy’ performed 44% worse than without. The figure for ‘simple’ was 49% poorer performancePositiveWho, not Why – When trying to intrigue readers, headlines containing the word ‘’Who’ generated 22% more click-throughs than those without. But the word ‘Why’ decreased click-through by 37%Picture it - Headlines with the word ‘photo’ performed 37% better than those without – people have been conditioned to consume images and videosBracketed pre-view - Using brackets to clarify what will be featured within the body copy. For example, headlines containing (Report), (White Paper), (Infographic) in brackets perform 38% better than headlines without – people want to know what to expect in the article/blog. The bracketed word ‘Template’ performed best of allSize matters – By understanding how title length affects click-through rate, you can generate more traffic for your content. For reader engagement, moderate length headlines perform best (81–100 characters, 16–18 words). The report data refer to English language. Apparently, in Spanish language headlines perform better as length increases, with 101-120 characters generating most engagement.CAVEAT Remember, the study was restricted to headlines used in a very specific environment. The marketplace was B2B, so it may or may not be relevant in the consumer marketplace. These were paid-link headlines, not articles in printed journals. There may also be differences between different types of subject matter. For example, ‘lifestyle’ readers may very well behave differently to people in, say, the biopharmaceutical sector. I have just given you a very brief overview. You can download the free 27 page eBook from the publishers, HubSpot and Outbrain, at: http://offers.hubspot.com/datadriven-strategies-titles-headlines